The Dilate Diaries
by blackeyedgurl
Summary: A series of Kara/Lee vignettes inspired by the Ani DiFranco Album Dilate, some are pre-war, some are AU. Lots of back stories. Angst, Drama, some Humor, and as always romance!
1. Untouchable Face Part 1

**A/N: Hello fair readers, I promise I am not abandoning Sometimes the Best Man... this was a story (and will be a series of stories) that struck me while listening to the Ani Difranco album Dilate. It's an album I overly relate to and seemed like most of the album could have been written by Kara at some point. So this will be a series of stories inspired by that music. Each story will start out giving you a setting, time frame, character list and any important notes, you will also get the lyrics to the original song of inspiration. I hope you enjoy these, as this first one literally just gushed out of me in under a day. Enjoy, and let me know if you think these are worth continuing as the mood strikes! I am considering putting together a Project Playlist of the songs from the album, if you'd like a link to that let me know! Thanks for reading!!!**

Setting: Caprica, Delphi City

Time Frame: Pre-attacks, post Zak's death, kinda AU

Characters: Kara, Lee, Gianne, Bill

Notes: _Italics_ are flashes back to the night after Zak's funeral.

**Untouchable Face  
**  
I think I'm goin for a walk now  
I feel a little unsteady  
Don't want nobody to follow me  
Except maybe you  
I could make you happy you know  
If you weren't already  
I can do a lot of things  
And I do  
Tell you the truth  
I prefer the worst in you  
Too bad you had to have a better half  
She's not really my type  
But I think you two are forever  
And I hate to say it  
But you're perfect together

So fuck you and your untouchable face  
Yeah fuck you for existing in the first place  
And who am I that I should be vying for your touch  
Said who am I  
I bet you can't even tell me that much

Two thirty in the morning  
And my gas tank will be empty soon  
Neon sign on the horizon  
Rubbing elbows with the moon  
Safe haven of sleepless  
Where the deep fryer is always on  
Radio is counting down the top 20 country songs  
Out on the porch the fly strip is waving like a flag in the wind  
You know I don't look forward to seeing you again  
You'll look like a photograph of yourself  
Taken from far far away  
I won't know what to do  
I won't know what to say except

Fuck you and your untouchable face  
Yeah fuck you for existing in the first place  
And who am I that I should be vying for your touch  
Said who am I  
I bet you can't even tell me that much

I see you and I'm so perplexed  
What was I thinking?  
What will I think of next?  
Where can I hide?  
In the backroom there's a light  
That hangs over the pool table  
When the fan is on it swings gently side to side  
There's a change in constellations  
Of the balls as we are playing  
I see Orion and I say nothing  
All I can think of to say is

Fuck you and your untouchable face  
Yeah fuck you for existing in the first place  
And who am I that I should be vying for your touch  
Said who am I  
I bet you can't even tell me that much.

* * *

Kara had never been as uncomfortable at a table as she is right now. Why the old man, wait, Commander Adama, wait, he told her to call him Bill, why Bill would invite her to dinner with him and Lee was beyond her. When he had called her initially she had been excited at the prospect of seeing Lee again. She hadn't seen him since Zak's funeral. The night of the funeral there had been an accident. Perhaps incident was a better word, regardless, the night ended with a drunken flight instructor taking an Adama boy home and into her bed. It wasn't the first time, but she swore it would be the last.

_It was a warm, sunny day the day of the funeral. Hardly the kind of day that makes you think about death. Halfway through the ceremony the old man took her hand. It was the nicest gesture anyone had done for her in a long time. Lee was seated with his mother Carolanne. Starbuck chose to stand, she could lock her knees that way and never fall down. She was in uniform, so she had to be a representative of that. She couldn't be the grieving near-widow that she actually was. Carolanne had given her the eye in the receiving line. The woman didn't like Kara; she had even gone so far as to make a snide remark about Kara not crying. Kara didn't cry, she didn't cry ever, not since her dad disappeared. Zak's father, the commander, the old man, had hugged her and she felt a tinge of Zak in it. The man's eyes were rimmed in red, and while he had not shed a tear during the service she could see that he had been before. Lee was as stoic as she was. He didn't express sadness, but you could feel a definite air of anger around him. She took her place in that line, and after a while she just turned into a robot, thanking and hugging, and shaking hands with people who should mean something to her, but who meant nothing. Her mother hadn't even bothered to show. Not that it surprised her._

_Now, she stood in the parking lot, leaned up against her truck, uniform jacket off and crumpled in the back seat. Once she figured she was the last at the cemetery she grabbed the bottle of whiskey and shot glass from the passenger seat and wandered to the grave. She poured out a shot and put it on his gravestone. She sipped from the bottle herself._

"_I hope you have enough to share." A familiar voice came from behind her, Lee. His uniform coat was slung over a shoulder and his eyes were rimmed in red._

"_Can't a girl drink with her dead fiancé in peace?" She asked._

_Lee walked up and grabbed the bottle from her hand, he took a large swig and handed it back to her. "Who said you need to be alone to have peace?"_

Lee had been on her mind since that night, she always had a weakness for pining away for any man she thought she might have missed the chance to frak up. She felt guilty, so guilty she thought it might consumer her. She didn't feel guilty for taking him, Zak's brother, to bed though, because that had to be something that would be expected of her. The grieving near-widow taking home the dead man's brother, it was something Helo would have called a Kara Classic. Zak has made her such a better person, and once he was gone there was no reason to be her anymore. No, what she felt guilty for was feeling more that night than she had ever felt with Zak.

Lee and she had a lot in common. She had met him a few times when he was on leave in Delphi. They had a passion for flying that Zak never would have or understand. He didn't want to live on a Battlestar and she wanted nothing more than to get back on one. Lee had been on the Battlestar Prometheus then, a similar ship to the one she had served on before her big mouth grounded her. Her big mouth put her on Nugget duty, a duty that lead her to Zak. They laughed at the same jokes, they were numbers 1 and 2 (her being first of course) in flight training records, and most of all she could see that inside of him was a deep sadness. It was the kind of sadness that lived inside of her. Zak was full of sunlight and Lee was full of night dotted with stars.

_The cemetery was about a half an hour outside Delphi. Somehow she ended up in the passenger seat of her truck with Lee behind the wheel. She didn't see another car in the lot so she had no idea how he had planned to get home. Instead of heading straight back to Delphi he took the frontage roads, which lead them through the Caprican countryside. It was strange that just outside of a huge city like Delphi there could be so much damn nothing. They just drove around like that, saying nothing, staring blankly out of windows. Two shells, but in a peaceful silence, none of it was uncomfortable._

"_We're almost out of gas." Was the first thing he said._

"_There's a station up ahead." She replied, she knew these back roads, her and Zak spent a lot of Sundays out here just driving._

"_All I see is a bar."_

"_It's a one bar town, and that bar doubles as the gas station."_

"_Oh."_

_The station was old, or at least looked old. In this area people weren't known for maintaining their stuff, so for all they knew the building could be 5 years old. They pulled in, and as Lee began to fill the tank Kara wandered inside the bar. He knew he'd have to go in after her. She was a mess, and he was a mess, a bar would only make things even messier._

_She was seated at a table in the back of the bar. She was nursing a glass of ambrosia, with the bottle on the table next to another glass. He joined her. Still they said nothing, but once she looked up at him and he could have sworn that he saw right into her soul._

Now sitting at this table with him and his "date" she was just nauseated. What had she really expected? That Lee was sitting up on that Battlestar, that he was sitting up there pining away for her? Of course this woman was more what he wanted. She was the perfect future officer's wife. She was pert, and perky and perfect. It killed Kara inside that this girl was so beneath him. She wasn't bright, she didn't have any fight in her, and she could smell her pretense at a mile. What she did have going for her was looks, she was model-pretty, super skinny, and had a laugh that tinkled like bells. She could see the attraction, a woman like that was simple, easy, safe, the polar opposite of what she was. Still Kara sat at the table, smiled, sipped her ambrosia and ate her meal.

_Lee ordered them food. If Kara kept drinking like this she was going to need to eat. Zak had told him about how Kara had literally drank him under the table on more than one occasion, but still, they had skipped the wake with the food, she needed to eat._

_Once she washed the meal down with more ambrosia she stood up. She put 4 cubits into the pool table and the balls spun out._

"_You wanna play?" It was the first thing she had said in over an hour. But she said it with a glint of the feisty competitiveness she had shown that first day he met her. It was another day, and she and Zak were playing Oblong, and he joined them. The park was full of people, and someone had taken their picture. Her and Zak were in an embrace and Lee was to the side of them holding the Oblong ball. His copy of that photo lived in his locker on the Prometheus. He knew why his little brother was enamored with her, because he was too._

The old man had invited her to dinner whenever he was on leave, this was the first time Lee also attended, even though he was always invited. She didn't know why he held such affection for the girl who had gotten his son killed. He didn't know that detail, but still she thought he would be able to smell it at a mile. He was good at seeing through her bullshit. She did like him though, he was the military dad she had always wanted, as opposed to the military mom she had. She could see where both of his sons came from within him. Lee was his dark, Zak was his light. Lee was burdened with a million unspoken things, things he could not speak of, things no one could know. Zak had never been burdened a day in his life. She suspected his big brother had shielded him from a lot; she had little respect for Carolann, their mother. The woman was a walking disaster. Zak saw her with the eyes of a child; Lee looked up on the woman with the eyes of an old warrior.

Lee looked worse for wear. How a man only a year older than her could seem so old was beyond her. Helo was the same age as him, and he always seemed so much lighter, so less burdened. Maybe it was just who he was, but Lee didn't even resemble the man she had seen less than 6 months ago. Death will do that to you though.


	2. Untouchable Face Conclusion

_The game went smoothly, as did the next four. The balls on the table floated in and out of constellations, ones he knew and many he didn't. They had to play until one of them had won fair and square, or until they ran out of cubits or ambrosia. Luckily all three things coincided. She was drunk, he was too._

"_We are in no condition to drive." Lee practically slurred in her ear._

"_You sir, appear to be drunk. I can call you sir right?" She replied with a giggle._

"_Yes you can. I don't think we can go back to Delphi."_

"_I don't want to anyways."_

"_Me neither." He wrapped an arm around her as they stumbled out of the bar._

_Across the street was a field. It appeared to be hay. She looked up at him with a devilish smile._

"_We can camp!" She announced it like it was the answer to all of their problems."Gimme keys." She reached out her fingers and poked him pocket. "Gimme!"_

"_You are not driving anywhere."_

"'_m not driving, I'm getting stuff out of the truck."She looked at him like a petulant child._

"_Fine, but I've got my eye on you Thrace."_

"_Yes, sir!" She salute in an over exaggerated way as he rifled out the keys. "Ta da!" She said as she pulled out two sleeping bags and a lantern._

"_What else you got in your magic trunk?"_

_She reached in and pulled out another bottle of booze._

"_That's the kind of magic I can get behind!" He laughed as they headed across the street. Somehow with the starlight and each other they felt they could survive anything._

_As they trudged through the field they moved further and further away from reality. The grass was high and if he didn't follow directly behind her he'd get lost. He almost did, but she came back for him. He adamantly swore that they were going the wrong way. She knew that there wasn't one._

Lee did have a chip on his shoulder. He told her once that he blamed his father for Zak's death. Bill had pushed his sons to follow in old Husker's footsteps. Lee had wanted to be a lawyer like grandpa, instead he ended up Apollo. Zak wanted to play pyramid professionally, instead he ended up dead. Kara couldn't believe that the old man had it in him to push his sons. She always figured it was Carolanne's fault. The woman came from a long line of Admirals, she would naturally expect her sons to follow suit. She had after all gotten Bill and that rotten best friend of his, Saul, reinstated. Kara had always wanted to ask him how he ended up getting discharged in the first place, but she also knew some skeletons deserved the closets that they were kept in.

All through dinner he kept looking at her. Piece by piece he was killing her insides. Glance by glance he was eating away at her resolve. She was unraveling. The ambrosia wasn't helping. The generic conversation was only making things worse. All she wanted to do was get up from this table and run out. She couldn't do that to the old man. This had nothing to do with him.

_They opened the sleeping bags to make one large sleeping area. They had almost done it subconsciously, not realizing how they were setting things up. When she lay down she had a huge sloppy grin on her face. Her eyes flashed with something he couldn't quite put his finger on when she patted the blanket next to her for him to join her. He did. He couldn't help himself. His blue eyes speared her; she had to see if she could crawl behind them. She wanted nothing more in the whole world than to be here, in this moment, right now._

_There are moments when no matter how drunk you are, you have a startling sober moment of clarity. They both knew exactly what they were doing as they embraced. No ambrosia could have produced the chemistry between them; it could only offer the catalyst to set off their personal reaction. They mauled each other, hungry, desperate, so full of nothing that they needed each other to fill the void. Pants and tanks and boots and underwear were scattered around them. They couldn't be naked fast enough, they needed to feel each other, they needed to be consumed by the other. Grief has a strange way of magnetizing people, even more so when the pull was already there. The act was full of passion, and when she moaned his name into his ear he nearly died. It was the greatest thing he had ever heard, she sounded so vulnerable, so sad. When the act was done he spooned behind her and held her beneath the second bag. They never spoke a word._

She could feel her anger, her shame, and her guilt boiling up in her. She had to get away from this table. She excused herself and stood too quickly, her feet were unsteady. Lee instinctively reached out an arm to steady her. She pulled away a little too harshly. It had been a kind gesture, but she was having none of it. She grabbed her pack of cigarettes and walked out onto the balcony on the back of the apartment. She never smoked in the old man's apartment. She thought it was disrespectful, he didn't smoke, there was no reason he needed to put up with her ugly suicidal habits.

The sun had just set and the whole city was illuminated with street lights. The cherry on her cigarette glowed and crackled. If she could just pull herself together, she could sober up enough to get the hell out of there. She wanted away from that blonde bombshell. She wanted to go back to her crap-hole little apartment, put on a tape and paint. She wanted to write angry poems, she wanted to get smashed; she wanted to grab the first unsuspecting guy and drag him home, get her rocks off and kick his ass out. In order to do any of these things, she would have to make it through another hour of this. She could suck it up, she could do this, if she lived 18 years with her demon of a mother, surely another hour of this wouldn't kill her. She was wrapped up in her own head when she heard the flick of a lighter behind her.

_The next morning they woke up in a dew covered field. Her head pounded, she must have drank enough to put half the Fleet under. Only when she tried to move did she realize that another body was entangled with hers. She scooted to see in whose arms she had ended up this time. It must have been a record, barely an almost-widow for 72 hours and she was already asleep in another man's arms. Arms that just happened to belong to the brother of said dead fiancé. In her head she could almost not believe herself. He was warm though, and when she shifted he mumbled in his sleep "Don't go."_

_She wanted nothing more than to flee at that moment, but she couldn't just abandon him in a field in a no name hick town could she? Was she that cruel? She was not known for having a big loving heart, but even to her this seemed, well, it seemed bad. She shifted out of his arms, looking for her clothes. With the exception of the underwear it was hard to tell whose clothes were whose. Only if she looked at the name tag inside could she really tell. She laced up her boots, and looked over at him. It was the first time she had seen him at peace. She also knew he was going to regret this night for the rest of his life. Somewhere deep down inside she kicked herself, because she knew she wouldn't._

She cringed when she heard that lighter snap shut. Gianne wasn't the type to smoke, the old man only smoked cigars after successful missions, that left only one body to follow her out here.

"I was waiting for you to flee."

"Had I know that I would have run out an hour ago." The words fell out of her mouth like broken glass. Each word stung. "Can't you ever just leave me alone?"

"I thought there had been enough of that."

"So tonight you finally decide to grace us with your presence?"

"Us?"

"Yeah, me and your dad. We've been doing this every month since, since it happened."

"I know, I've just been busy."

"Yeah I can see that, she's lovely, really. I'm sure you'll produce many adorable blue eyed ankle biters."

"Whoa Kara, we're just dating."

"It doesn't look like that to me." Kara finally turned around to look at him, "She keeps rubbing her ring finger. You probably don't notice it, but she's itching for a ring. I think your window of opportunity is shrinking Lee."

"And to think I just wanted to come out and see how you were."

"Me? Oh, I'm great. Your dad just got me reassigned to Galactica. I'll be shipping out from the Caprican Transfer Station in two weeks time."

"You always did want to end up back on a Battlestar."

"Why would you care what I want?" She mumbled as she turned back around.

_When he woke up she was gone. His clothes were dumped in a pile next to him, but she was gone. His head was in a bad way, and he felt more than a little nauseous. It took him a minute to piece together the night before. By the time he was steady enough to stand up he was mostly dressed. He rolled up the sleeping bags as best as he could. Bending over wasn't in his best interest. He was about to head back the direction he thought they came from when he heard a rustling in the grass behind him._

"_I figured if I didn't come back you'd get lost out here." She approached with a bottle of water and something that resembled food. "You're gonna want this, and these." She opened up her hand to reveal some pain killers. "Mine are already on board. We better get going. I need to get you back to the Transfer Station."_

_She was acting like nothing had happened the night before. He couldn't wrap his head around it. What they had done wasn't exactly the best idea, but to act like it never happened? That just seemed, well it seemed unfair. Hadn't she felt what he had felt? What they did wasn't right, but it was somehow one of the best things he had ever done in his life. Clearly she regretted having done this, and wanted nothing more than to get rid of him as soon as possible._

_She grabbed one of the bed rolls, and led him back to the truck. She had the keys from the night before, and he climbed into the passenger seat. She rifled through the glove box and handed him a pair of sunglasses. He knew instinctively that they had been Zak's. She revved the engine more than she needed to and squealed the tires leaving the station. She headed back to the main road and back to Delphi as quickly as possible. _

_He wanted to say something. She wanted to say something, but nothing seemed right for either of them._

Kara tamped out her cigarette before he could get another word in, and tossed it off the balcony. She turned to go back in but he was blocking the door.

"Excuse me." She said, but she wouldn't look up at him.

"Kara," he said and reached out an arm to her, "Please, we haven't talked since…"

"Don't do this Lee, don't dredge up old memories, past mistakes, just leave them where they belong." She could feel her voice start to waver, and she clenched and unclenched her fists. If it had been anyone else, and had she been anywhere other than where she was right now, she would have decked him.

"So that's what I am to you, some mistake, some bad memory?" She could hear his will breaking as he said the words.

"Isn't that what I am to you? I mean clearly I am not what you want."

"Kara, frak, I..." He begged with his eyes and his voice and she couldn't bear another minute of it. She pushed past him and back into the apartment. If he was going to say hurtful things, she didn't want to be there to hear them. She had heard enough talk like that to last her lifetime, she sure as shit didn't need it from him.

The adrenaline was pulsing through her body, and her fight or flight response kicked into overdrive. Generally after dinner she and the old man enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood. He would tell her old war stories, and she would tell him the tales and adventures of Kara Thrace. Tonight she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Commander, I'm sorry, but I really need to get going. It's been a long day, and dinner was great, but I really need to be getting home."

"Don't worry about it Kara." He looked down at her like he knew that she just couldn't be in there one more minute. "Are you okay to drive, Lee could take you home."

"I've had quite enough of him for one evening, and I am sure I am fine. It's only a 10 minute drive, and this late it shouldn't be busy." She grabbed her coat out of the closet and felt for the keys in the pocket. Bill marveled at how she could dress casually, and still leave the house in the trashed leather jacket with paint smears all over it. It was Kara though, and he understood that.

"Okay, I just don't want anything to happen to my ace pilot before she gets on board my ship." He said with a warm smile.

"Don't worry sir, I'll be just fine." He offered her a squeeze around the shoulders as she opened the door.

"See you in two weeks, I expect you to join me for dinner in my quarters your first night on board."

"I know, I know." She said with a smile as she walked down the hallway.

* * *

Lee nearly knocked his father down, "Where is she going?"

"She's heading home, she has things to do. I'm sorry she didn't say good bye." Bill felt as though he was clearly missing something, but knew it was probably better not to ask.

"Gods dammit!" Lee nearly growled at his father as he rushed past him, and down the hall.

Gianne finally had gotten up from the table to see what was going on. "Commander Adama, where's Lee going?"

"He needed to say goodbye to Kara, I'm sure he'll be right back." He turned and closed the door. "Could you help me get the dishes into the kitchen, I'm going to be washing all night without some help."

"Sure, of course." Bill could hear the defeated sound in her voice, and could see the glint fade out of her eyes. She also seemed to know something that he wasn't being told, but he didn't dare to ask.

* * *

_She dropped him off at the personnel entrance for the Transfer Station. As usual for Lee when the words he needed to say needed to be said they got stuck in his throat. He wanted to tell her that he wanted to see her again. That he wanted to find excuses to come back to Delphi, excuses that weren't family related. Instead, he choked._

"_See you 'round Lee." She smiled at him, and he could feel her sadness sweep over him._

"_Kara, I, I," He was floundering, "I hope to see you soon." He would have kicked himself in his mouth if he could have. He could see whatever hope had been behind her eyes was now gone, he blew it._

"_Yeah, don't be a stranger or something." She said as she pulled away._

_Driving away she could see him in the rear view mirror, he raised a hand to her and she just looked ahead at the road. It was better than glancing backwards at the past. _

He got to the parking garage with enough time to catch her. He waved her down in a way that there was no way she could pass him; no way she could act like she missed seeing him. She reached over and rolled down the passenger side window, but she was too late, he had already opened the door.

"Lee," She started to protest but he was already across the seat, and had taken her face in his hands.

"Just stop Kara, stop telling me who I am." He said right before he kissed her. It was a kiss that she so desperately needed and absolutely feared. She gave into it for a second, maybe two, and then pushed him off of her.

"Get the frak off of me Lee!"

He sank down into the passenger seat.

"What are you doing? You have a perfect little girlfriend who's waiting upstairs, and you're down here in the frakking basement kissing me."

"But, Kara, I meant to…" He tried to object, it was a good thing he hadn't of been a lawyer, when it mattered words always failed him.

"Meant to what?"

"I wanted to tell you…"

"Tell me to stop telling you who you are? Well Lee, who am I? Can you tell me that much? Who am I to you? I'm just the sister in law you almost had, and the mistake you did." The words came out of her with more anger than she intended. Sometimes what she bottled up she didn't even remember until it was uncorked on someone else.

"Kara, you're not a…" His mouth was moving too slowly, his brain was moving too fast.

"Just get the frak out of my truck and go back to your life, please Lee. I've ruined one Adama boy and I don't want to do it to another." She pushed on him, and he easily slid towards the open door.

Once he was out of the truck she didn't wait for him to close the door. If she gunned it hard enough it would close on her own and she could get out of there before any more damage was done. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, but she wasn't crying, no, she didn't cry.

This time she never looked in the rearview mirror. The past didn't lead her anywhere, and there was no reason to see it falling away.

* * *

**Prologue**

The week before she left for Galactica she saw it in the paper: a color photo announcing the engagement of Captain Leland "Apollo" Adama to Gianne Korrine Josephson. She barely recognized the man in the photo as Lee, it didn't even look like him. She needed to remember to paint over what she had written on her wall for him. It was a version of him she had only imagined in her mind.

**Methodically smoking my cigarette****  
Every breath I breathe out the day****  
With every delicious sip****  
I drink away the night****  
Stroking my hair to  
****The beat of his heart  
Watching a boy turn into a man**


	3. Dilate 1

Notes: This story is experimental. I don't know if you'll like it, or even get it, but I hope that you do. This song is the namesake for this series, so I hope you like it! It felt like there could be two stories going on within in it, so there is here! You'll get the portion of the song & the character at the beginning of each transition.

Setting: Lee on Pegasus Kara on Galactica

Characters: Lee, Lee/Dee, Kara, Kara/Lee, Kara/Baltar

Time Frame: Mixed: Lee/Post Unfinished Business (New Caprican period) Kara/Colonial Day

**Lee**

**Life used to be life-like,  
Now it's more like show biz.  
I wake up in the night,  
And I don't know where the bathroom is,  
And I don't know what town I am in,  
Or what sky I am under,  
I wake up in the darkness,  
I don't have the will anymore to wonder.  
Everyone has a skeleton,  
And a closet to keep it in,  
And you're mine.  
Every song has a you,  
A you that the singer sings to,  
And you're it this time,  
Baby, you're it this time.**

Life on Pegasus was routine. He was commander, but really, what was a commander in peace time? It was nothing but an antiquated figurehead, a symbol, the second largest cog in the wheel. It meant nothing. Sure, the ship needed leadership, things needed to get done, papers needed to be signed, schedules written up, and he did these things. Well, Dee did most of them, he mostly went through the motions.

Since he had married Dee he felt like he was in a daze. He wandered around like a zombie, neither here or there. Last time he felt like this was after the Blackbird, after he floated through space, oxygen deprived and ready to die. This time it wasn't a near death experience that had brought about his melancholy, it was a near life experience. He had tasted and seen and proclaimed what he had wanted most of all, and then it snuck off the next morning and married someone else. So he walks around in a daze, and nothing fulfills him.

Now he wanders the halls of his ship, a ship he can't even find the head in. He sleeps in a real bed, next to the woman he committed himself to and he feels nothing but alone. He feels lost in the dark without a light to guide him, he's lost his direction, true north is gone. He doesn't even really know where he is anymore. When he goes planet side, which is rare, it could be New Caprica, it could be some crap miner's settlement on Triton, it's irrelevant, it doesn't matter, they all seem the same.

His will to fight with Dee was gone; instead he went through the motions of being a good husband, of caring about her, of loving her. He was an actor playing the role of a life time, the role of his life. Commander, husband, leader, lover, it was all nothing to him. He was a shell, being filled with whatever role someone expected of him. When he frakked Dee it was always with his eyes closed and his mind somewhere else, that is when he could stomach it. He imagined Kara was there, and once had called out to her during the act. That landed him two weeks on the couch. It didn't really matter, when he woke in a cold sweat, with her name on his lips and her scent in his mind, it was still just darkness around him.

He had stopped wondering what would be different if Kara and he had wed that morning; he had lost the will to do that too. He stopped caring about her little house, he stopped wanting to upset her neat little apple cart, he stopped thinking about his porch swing. He had stopped imagining the small tow haired girl child with his eyes and her fight. He had even stopped fantasizing about calling in a favor to Zarek, to his black market pals, to put a hit out on Anders. If he was gone maybe she would come back to him. It wouldn't be the first time her dead love drove her back to the stars. That was his most desperate moment, a moment he found in the bottom of a whiskey bottle and later regurgitated in the head.

Dee said she would have him until either the cylons or Kara came back. He desperately wished for either. He knew if the cylons came back that it would take Zeus himself to keep her out of the fight. It made him feel sick to wish that, but it didn't stop him.

He kept her personnel file in the locked bottom drawer of his desk. Whenever he was feeling particularly lost he would pull it out just to see her face again, just to reset his balance. She might not have been dead, but the specter of Kara Thrace followed him everywhere. The skeleton in his closet had a name, and his heart, and quite possibly his soul.

Lee Adama had the startling revelation that for a long time everything he had done had been for her. Not directly, but she had been what it was all about for a while. That first time he saw her, laughing and cooking and eating with Zak, he knew she had him. He would have taken her on that table, double dare or not, brother in the next room or not, but in reality she had stopped him. Since then other women had gotten under his skin, Dee had even at first, but now everything was for her. It was all her this time. I had always been her. It probably always would be.


	4. Dilate 2

**Kara**

**When I need to wipe my face,  
I use the back of my hand.  
And I like to take up space,  
Just because I can.  
And I use my dress,  
To wipe up my drink.  
I care less and less what people think.  
And you are so lame,  
You always disappoint me,  
It's kind of like our running joke,  
But it's really not funny.  
I just want you to live up to,  
The image of you I create,  
I see you and I'm so unsatisfied,  
I see you and I dilate.**

She had never been particularly girly. To be perfectly honest she never got along with other women. They cared about frivolous little things, things that they thought mattered, things like their hair and shoes and purses. Things that the minute those cylon motherfrakkers nuked the colonies became irrelevant.

Kara was one of the boys. She swore like them, she drank like them (better than some), frakked like them, and could do anything they could do. Being in the fleet, as a soldier, only made this easier. It was expected of her. So she could brawl and gamble and mouth off and it was expected. She liked to play with the boys and was one of the only girls who could really hang. The girls who couldn't didn't last long.

So what if her hair was generally messy, that her uniform often smelled, and her BTUs often had mysterious stains on them, it's not like any of those things mattered, right? Plus it's not like she gave frak all what anyone thought of her. Well, the only opinions that really mattered to her belonged to the Adama men, and they seemed to like her just the way she was.

When Lee openly challenged her though, well, it struck a nerve. She did clean up well. She didn't do it often; it was reserved for important moments, holidays, and special occasions. It's a well known fact among legions of tom-boys that, while uncommon, they did clean up well. Almost all of them had a dress at the ready and a pair of ridiculously designed shoes to go with it. They can all put on make-up; they can all do their hair. Not doing these things all the time was not a sign of inability, in fact they generally excelled at it, and they just had better things to do with their time, like work out or get drunk or punch someone. There is no guarantee though, that putting on a dress will affect their manners, they might physically clean up, but on more than one occasion Starbuck had picked a fight while wearing a dress. Clothes are topical, they don't change who you are under them after all.

She didn't know why Lee's challenge embedded itself so deeply within her. She wanted to prove to him that she was a girl despite all evidence to the contrary. She might play with the boys, but she was still all woman.

For some reason she felt disappointed that they way he saw her wasn't any deeper than her uniform. She expected so much more from him. Zak could see beneath her façade, so could the old man. Why was it so beyond Lee? She figured all the Adama men had some secret Starbuck decoder ring, maybe his got lost in the mail. She thought he could see her, see the real her, because gods, she saw the real him.

Lee was terribly broken inside. At bare minimum he was damaged goods. He had a lot of secrets, prying them out of him was impossible. His stiff upper lip and strict adherence to military rules and regulations was just a way to create a routine. It was easier to hide under a routine, that is unless you were like Kara and were all about flying your flag of damagedness for everyone to see. His was a coping mechanism she had heard of, but couldn't pull off herself.

Somewhere deep inside her she knew that despite or perhaps in spite of all of this he was a good man. She didn't know this because he came from a long line of good men, because he was made of the same stuff as Zak and the old man, no because whenever she looked at him she could see that running through his blood, hot as lava, was passion. So many people lacked it, but he, like her was brimming with it. She wanted that passion directed at her. She knew she was the only woman who could ever handle it, handle all of it. She wanted to consume it, she wanted to grab hold of it and never let go. She desperately wanted him; she had since she first met him. She needed him to want her, their destinies had to intertwine, otherwise Aphrodite would have never laid him so squarely along her path.

Time spent with Lee had always left her unsatisfied. She didn't know if it was because she needed more from him, of him, or if she had just set her expectations way too high. Either way, his were still the eyes she was drawn to every time she entered a space that contained him within it. Maybe she could make him live up to what she saw in him, maybe she could make him the kind of man that she knew he was. If she couldn't, maybe she'd just destroy him trying.

So she did what she knew would drive him mad. She cleaned up. She did own a dress. It was kept in her storage footlocker along with all her girly things. She had brought it on board for non-uniform formal events. In all her years in the fleet she had worn it exactly once. Helo told her that if he hadn't of had a girlfriend on Gemenon he would have loved to get her out of that dress. She took that as a high level compliment, as for all the playing girls he did, he hadn't ever turned his attentions to her before. If it could affect Helo that way, then clearly it would have the same effect on Lee. While her knee was still killing her, the tiny impossibly useless shoes that came with the dress had to be worn. She couldn't exactly pull off the look with a pair of combat boots.

She followed Sharon, Dee and Cally into their super secret changing room. It sounds cliché, but really, it's just easier to get ready as a group. There aren't many girls left, so they do need to stick together. Plus, between the 4 of them they have enough beauty products and hair crap to make them all beautiful until the end of the world. Even though the world just ended. She wanted to wear her hair straight, Cally and Sharon swore up and down that curled was the way to go. Dee had no opinion, she suspected the girl's sights were set a lot higher than Billy. Dee and Sharon knew who she was trying to impress, even if they didn't say it, she knew they could see it. So she curled it. By the time the 4 of them were done most of the men of the fleet would be hard pressed to recognize any of them.

She sidled up to the bar. While the shoes were useless she loved the way she felt when she walked in them. She ordered 2 shots of whiskey and an ambrosia cocktail. The first 2 were to loosen up, the last was for effect.

His eyes burned into the back of her neck before she even turned around. She could feel them scan her from head to toe, looking for some sort of recognition. There was a feeling of familiarity hanging in the air, and she laughed to herself. He didn't recognize her right off. Splendid. Turning around immediately wasn't in the game plan. She wanted him to simmer a bit, she wanted him to sweat for a minute, trying to recognize her, trying match what he was seeing with what he thought he knew. The blue fabric swung gently from her wrists as she sipped her drink, her hair was tousled, the dress clung in all the right places, and the heels made her feel like her legs were a mile long. She was driving him right out of his mind, and when she turned to face him, drink in hand, smirk firmly in place, she immediately found his eyes. The moment they met she could have sworn she felt hers dilate.

**A/N: I know the Lee chapter for this is sadly lacking. I have plans to go back and rework it. It wasn't my finest work, but really, would some reviews kill you? I know you guys are reading this! I need feedback!!! Okay I won't harass you anymore. I know how annoying a whiny author begging for reviews can be. But please, don't make me beg!**


	5. Dilate 3

Dilate 3

**A/N: I've decided to make a change in these stories that I was not originally planning. Instead of remaining with Lee on Pegasus for Dilate part 3, we are going to see Colonial Day from his point of view, consequently we will see Kara's view post Unfinished Business for Dilate part 4. I am also reworking chapter one, so you might want to go back and reread it (It'll be reworked once chapter 4 is up); I look back now and feel it's vastly incomplete. I was out of town all last week, and I am now using this to get past my finale, eh, I don't even know. I hope you enjoy the change I've made (I feel it makes more sense this way). The angst gets ramped up to about 50 at the end. Thank Ron for that development.**

So I'll walk the plank and I'll jump with a smile  
If I'm gonna go down  
I'm gonna do it with style  
And you won't see me surrender  
You won't hear me confess  
Cos you've left me with nothing  
But I've worked with less  
I learn every room long enough  
To make it to the door  
And then I hear it click shut behind me  
Every key works differently  
I forget every time  
And the forgetting defines me  
Yeah that's what defines me

Lee – Colonial Day

Lee hated dressing for these events. The dress greys reminded him of funerals. The only time they ever really got them out was for matters of state and funerals, but it was mostly funerals. He wore it to Zak's funeral, he's worn it to the funerals aboard the Galactica, ironically he was wearing it the day their world's died. The suit was representative of death, it was a shroud.

The suit would be put on, the sash fashioned, his medals, pips and decorations affixed; this time the suit was for a matter of state, was there even a state anymore? Regardless, they were celebrating, not only the time honored holiday of Colonial Day, but the election by quorum of a new vice president. Granted he thought Gaius Baltar was a bit shifty, anyone who was that smart, but played that dumb had to be up to something.

Colonial Day took on a whole new meaning this time around. It used to be a celebration of the unification of the colonies. After hundreds of years of interplanetary fighting, all of the planets and subsequent colonies joined together, creating the quorum, and bringing about peace; a peace that was only destroyed by their self-created thirteenth race. This time they were celebrating what remained of the colonies after the genocide, after being destroyed by their own creations.

After a long day on the Cloud 9 he collected his uniform from Galactica, and went to the head to take a shower. The day had its highlights and low moments. The bar fight wasn't going to please his father, even though it was fun. He knew Kara would smooth that over with the Commander. The water fight was fun too, but no one would get in trouble for that. He loved hearing her laugh and shriek with joy. It'd been a long time since they had that kind of fun on the ground instead of in a set of vipers. The imitation sun light, the green of the foliage, the faux blue of the sky, it was true, it was almost like the real thing.

The feelings he had for Kara were almost like the real thing too. He had buried them a long time ago, even before Zak died, before he wore this suit for what seemed like its primary function. He could remember the first time he saw her, radiant in that blue top, looking dumbstruck, meeting his eyes at her rat trap apartment in Delphi. He had brought her flowers, thinking she was like all the other girls Zak had invited him to meet (only to have them disappear off Zak's DRADIS about 2 weeks later). She was different. He lost words around her, like she had plucked them from his throat and threw them back to him in the form of hearty laughter.

She was perfection. She was amazing. She was his brother's girlfriend.

Not that the last fact would have stopped him. He had stolen plenty of girls from Zak in high school. He had never intended to steal them, it just sort of happened that way. High school girls were notoriously fickle anyways. Zak had warned Kara about him though. Still, you could cut the tension between them with a machete. Through dinner she eye frakked him. The food was awful, the conversation considerably better and the alcohol flowed freely. Zak had to get back to base. Lee stayed behind. One thing led to another…

He never felt guilty about bedding his little brother's viper jock girlfriend. Once he figured out she was Starbuck, _the Starbuck_, well he knew where things would lead. Her flight record wasn't the only thing that preceded her. She frakked like she flew, wild and loose and unpredictably. He had never felt so alive; he had never felt like he was with an equal. She could take as well as she gave, and he had so much to give. The guilt never sunk in, not when they got engaged, not when Zak died, not when he went home to his pregnant girlfriend (he didn't know it at the time, but it wouldn't have changed anything). There was nothing for him to feel guilty about, she was his soul mate, he didn't believe in love at first sight or soul mates before he met her, but godsdamnit if it wasn't the only thing he thought about when he thought of her afterwards. It wasn't the last time they had clandestinely been together, only the first time, the first of many.

They were a good team. Since they were brought back together on the Galactica it fell right back into place. The fighting, the flying, all that was missing was the frakking. Now there was nothing to keep him away from her. The only thing separating him from her bed every night was a vulcanized rubber curtain. On more than one occasion he had peeked in, and thought about climbing in silently, like a thief, to take what he knew was rightfully his. Today had only confirmed his belief that they were the best thing this side of the apocalypse. They kept the president alive, they stopped the mad-man Zarek's plans, and they lived to tell about it. They also had a water fight in the park, had engaged in a bar fight, and some light piloty banter.

So he suited up. He put on the death suit with the intention of changing what it meant to him. He would forget what it had represented for so many years, and instead give it a new meaning. He would make it the suit he wore the night he took Kara Thrace to bed as a proper man. Not a man frakking his brother's girlfriend behind his back, not sneaking around behind his girlfriend's back, no, this time it would be legitimate.

He had a key in his pocket. The dead man's key. One of the benefits of being an assassin was apparently a free room on the Cloud 9. Not an easy commodity to come by. It was only fair that someone enjoyed the room.

So he walked those halls. Hands sweaty, nervously slicking back his hair, he could hear the music of the party before he was within sight of it. The heels of his dress uniform shoes clicked and echoed in the hallway, he felt like the last man in the world, like a dead man walking to his own execution. Because that's what this was. If she rejected him, it would kill him. He was walking the plank, he was going to jump, and either the sharks would eat him, rending him limb from precious limb, or she would be there, arm extended, rescue boat beneath her, pulling him back to shore. He was going to jump for her, and he was going to do it with a smile.

The music was festive, the energy of the room was happy, and he couldn't find her. She was nowhere to be seen. Then he noticed something. The ladies of Galactica were in dresses. Actual dresses. Dee and Cally, Boomer and Racetrack, all of them in dresses. Not a blonde among them.

The bar was where he would seek solace. He would get some liquid courage into him, and go looking for her again. The leggy blonde at the bar caught his eye. Tousled blonde locks, a certain curve to her shoulders, a delicate arm, the roundness of her ass, a leg extended until it all ended in a tiny silver heel, she was precisely his type. She was exactly what he went for on the colonies, someone to fill a Thrace shaped void. Then he realized she was more than that, it was Kara. Why it hadn't dawned on him that she would be there too (she was Starbuck after all, the girl regularly out drank men twice her size), was beyond him.

Once again she stole his words. Once again she flabbergasted him. Once again he stood, mouth agape like an idiot man-child. So he babbled something about her knee, and her other knee, and she fondled a glass of ambrosia.

"If you wanted to ask me to dance you should just ask."

He gulped, there was no liquid courage on board just yet, so he offered her an arm. "After all, seeing me in a dress is a once in a lifetime opportunity." If he had things his way he would see her in one more dress, a white one, maybe not with lace and pearls and embroidery like the one Gianne had eyed for all those months, but a dress none the less.

He lead her to the dance floor and just as with everything, they fell into step. They always fell into step, matching each other move for move. They finished the dance, they drank and socialized, they fell into an easy relationship. When he was with her he never felt like Lee hanging with Kara, it always felt like Lee and Kara against the worlds. And so it went on, for a long while. He even saw his dad and the president take a few turns around the dance floor. Occasionally Chief or Crashdown or Gaeta would steal a dance from Kara, but she always came back to him.

He didn't need to surrender, he didn't need to confess, and it was clear how things were going to go down. They were going to have a few more drinks, they would share a dance or two more, and then he could guide her down the hallway, with his hand on the small of her back, with her laughter ringing in his ears, and her arm around his waist. He could see it all, it was destiny. It seemed so clear until that slimey snake Baltar got into the mix.

Of course the vice president would want a dance with the top viper jock. And of course he would charm her with his knowledge of two things she loved as much as flying: booze and cigars. His hand was on her ass, his other tangled in her hair. He was whispering something in her ear, and she threw her head back and laughed. Lee had seen this before, had known how it would turn out, of course he did, because so often on Caprica Baltar had been him.

He was ready to run interference. Kara looked up at him and winked. Her eyes were full of life and happiness, and a little bit of "get me the frak away from him." So he tried. He put one foot in front of the other, his stride confident, he was close enough to touch her. He would grab her arm, pull her to him, and take her away. He could feel the heat of her body against his open palm when Dee walked up and wrapped that arm around her to dance.

He gave Dee a look, a look that if it could have, would have killed her on the spot. Why she wasn't with the president's aide was beyond him. By the time he looked up Kara and Baltar were gone.

He finished that dance as a courtesy. He finished it because it was what manners and rules and regs would expect from him. He didn't go running down the corridor screaming her name. No, he worked with what he had, what was in his arms at that moment. And then he politely excused himself. And then he bought the biggest bottle of whiskey he could get his hands on. And then he pulled the cork out and threw it against the bulkhead. And then he started chugging back the bottle. He left the party, only letting himself go once the door clicked shut behind him.

By the time he made it to their, his, room, the bottle was mostly gone. The key was simple, but he wasn't. He had even practiced the key, putting it in the lock, so he wouldn't look a fool. Living on an aged Battlestar meant there were no keys, just rudimentary codes, and those were not the kind of keys to anyone's heart, to anyone's head, to anyone's room.

He had forgotten a lot in that walk. He forgot why he wore that damned suit. He forgot that the money he left the bartender meant nothing. He forgot the way the blue fabric was tied to her wrists. He forgot laughing hazel eyes. He forgot about her knee and her other stupid knee. He forgot how the key worked. Forgetting would define this night, it would define this suit, it would define this room, it would define Lee Adama.


	6. Dilate 4

**A/N: Chapter 1 has been reworked. This chapter is short, but I feel like it's exactly how it should be. What do you think? Thanks to everyone who's following this story. I'd love to hear from some of you!**

**When I say you sucked my brain out,  
The English translation is,  
I am in love with you,  
And it is no fun.  
But I don't use words like love,  
Cos words like that don't matter.  
But don't look so offended,  
You know you should be flattered.  
I wake up in the night,  
In some big hotel bed,  
And my hands grope for the light,  
My hands grope for my head.  
The world is my oyster,  
The road is my home,  
And I know that I'm better,  
I'm better off alone.**

Kara – New Caprica

Clearly Lee Adama had sucked out her brain. She hated him more than a little for that fact. At first it was fine. Sam and her were fine. It was the party it was supposed to be. But at some point, things changed. She changed.

Sam could sense it. For a jock he was incredibly attuned to her. She really had expected Sam to be dumber than this. Dumb guys were easy, they expected little, had even less suspicion, and couldn't tell your good days from the worse. Dumb guys couldn't tell that you were disingenuous when you said you loved them. Sam was dumber than Lee, but not by enough.

Lee's words ate at her mind, a brain worm, slowly consuming her. She didn't just love him, she was in love with him. It sucked. It was no fun. It made her marriage a joke, her place in the universe wasn't clear anymore, and really, it was not like her at all. She didn't use words like love. She didn't use words at all. She used her body, more often her fists. It was her mother's legacy, but it wasn't a product of it. It was just who she was. Words failed her more than her body ever did.

It was better this way. She did what she did to protect him. Eventually Lee would have grown to hate her, and everything that made them Lee and Kara, Apollo and Starbuck, would have been gone. She could live with Sam's eventual hate of her. She could live with him never wanting to see her again. But Lee? She couldn't live with that.

When he walked up to them, after the old man told him, he looked like someone had scooped out his soul and threw it away. He was empty. He had sucked out her brain, she had stolen his soul. What a pair.

Really, she had wished more than once since then that he would have grabbed her, kissed her, dragged her back to the priest, annulled the marriage to Sam, and instead become his wife. But it wasn't what would be good for Lee. He really should have been flattered, for once she put someone ahead of herself. Of course she did this in the wrongest way possible, but that was what made her Starbuck, now Kara Thrace, or was she Kara Anders? Lee should be grateful, she spared him from her.

Now, she wakes in the night, in a strange bed, on a stranger planet and chokes on her own air. Sam snores. She can never find the light; she can never find even her own head. She's a mess, and while Sam snores away she cries.

She doesn't cry because she feels guilty, or because she thinks she picked the wrong man. She cries because she realizes the only way to keep anyone safe from her is to be alone. She ruined Zak, she ruined Lee, and now she would ruin Sam. She was better off alone, she was better off wandering through this life and this world alone. The road that she had walked down she had done so alone. The life she had made she had made alone. It was better for everyone else if she stayed that way.

Now though, it was too late. She wasn't alone. She had damaged them, and she couldn't repair them. She hoped one day Lee would understand and forgive her. She hoped Sam would let her go. But hoping didn't get anything done, so instead she would roll over, away from Sam, and curl up tight. In her mind she was alone, she could be alone in the same bed with her husband. She could be alone with Lee eating away at her mind, she could be alone anywhere. All she had to do was will it.


End file.
